Over Omniscient Skyscrapers
by Vestina
Summary: What they were wasn't something that could be described simply; they were haphazard, a wild mix of unfinished chemistry homework, irremovable spider webbing, and half-eaten foot-long sandwiches. Drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

He stops at Harold's Pizza after dropping pictures at the Bugle. Even though Gwen likes weird-ass toppings. Marinated artichokes, blech.

Except, he had also stopped for a vandal mugging some chick. Now the suit clings to his skin, adhesive with sweat.

"Woah, you're that spider dude!" the guy behind the counter marvels.

Fuck, he should have taken it off.

"Yeah, even I eat pizza. A large half pepperoni, half artichoke. Thanks."

"Of course dude! And for Spider-Man, it's on the house!"

"Nah, I can-"

The guy calls over his shoulder, "Guys, it's Spider-Man!"

It's going to be a long night.

* * *

><p>Calc is a bitch.<p>

The room is blanketed in darkness; a better thinking environment.

Not that it's helping much.

The Red Bull tastes like ass, but she's not focusing without it.

Soft padding on the fire escape. Knows it's either him or a rapist. She hopes it isn't a rapist. She doesn't need that kind of stress. She has to focus.

His fingers drum on her neck. Shit, he's quiet. She glances over her shoulder. "What?"

"Square it first."

"Shit."

"Shit is right. I need out of this suit. "

"Then go change! And stop doing that potty dance."

"So itchy..."

* * *

><p>Perfection equals t-shirts and jeans. Why he made his escape by jumping into the Hudson, is beyond his logical thinking.<p>

She's picking those disgusting marinated artichokes off her slice when he comes back, popping them on her tongue.

He wrinkles his nose at her. "Guess who I'm not kissing tonight."

She chucks one at his head. Reflexively, his hands come up to cover his face. She snorts at him, the sound wildly unfeminine, and abrasively unattractive.

Except it's also sort of cute.

Shoots a web toward the discarded artichoke, flinging it at the trash can.

It misses. Pathetically.

More snorting.

* * *

><p>Later.<p>

"Go home, Peter. I don't want May to worry about you."

"You're probably right..."

"Am I ever not?"

"Well, when it comes to calc..."

"Asshole." She punches him on the shoulder. A little harder then softly. (Yes, there may have been a part of her that just wanted to touch his arm.)

His eyes shift sideways toward her. Presumably because her fist collided with his bicep a second longer than necessary. He bites the side of his lip. Then tilts his head.

And then they're kissing.

He pulls back. "How the hell could I have forgotten those fucking artichokes?"

* * *

><p>He leans his elbows against the railing, letting the cool metal of the fire escape soothe his skin. "You know what I hate?" he murmurs.<p>

"Hmm?"

"You can't see the stars here. Everything is so bright in New York."

"You're so dorky."

"I would call it romantic..."

"Isn't that a sleaze-ball move? Pointing out constellations. Like, 'Look, Orion's Belt. Can I undo your belt?'"

"Well since you asked."

"Bastard."

"Getting defensive only means you want it more."

"Ugh, eww."

"Oh, gee thanks. Not even my girlfriend wants to have sex with me."

"Go home, Pete. Before I slap you."


	2. Chapter 2

It's dark when she finds him in the school library. The old guy must have closed up and not realized Peter was in here.

And he's pacing. Mouthing the words of his history textbook.

"Hey," she says.

He flinches, the book clattering. "Fuck, Gwen."

"You better be glad the librarian's gone for the night. I thought you had spider-sense. That you knew when I was coming."

"That's only when there's shit flying at my head."

"Oh."

"And the War of the Three Henrys is fucking confusing. I was distracted."

"Need me to tutor you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

He hesitates.

* * *

><p>"Alright, so Henry of Navarre-"<p>

"Who?"

"I just told you!"

"But this guy's different than Henry Guise?"

"Yes, but he's also known as..."

"Henry III?"

"No! Henry Bourbon!"

"Fuck."

Somehow, she got him to sit down, but this, this is shit. So, he decides to be a little devious. Touches his elbow to hers, slowly inching along her forearm.

"So Henry Guise- What the hell are you doing?"

"Umm..." Trails his fingers along her pale shoulder.

"Pete."

"Yeah?" he murmurs with a half smile.

"Which guy was the Huguenot?"

"Henry."

"How far did you have to reach for that one?"

* * *

><p>She doesn't know how they got here. One second they were discussing French absolutism and the next...<p>

She wants to find out why he always tastes like peppermint.

Her tongue caresses his upper lip as she pulls away. "Stop." And it's only a breath.

"No." He pulls her back.

"Peter, please," she murmurs when he pauses for a breath. "I gotta go, you gotta go..."

Kiss."No."

"Why are you so like a two year old?" Kiss.

"I don't even want to picture that. Creepy pedophile..."

"Ew, not like that!" He looks at her. Adorably. "Come on. We're leaving now."

* * *

><p>Of course. That bat-shit crazy librarian had enough sense to lock the library doors when he left.<p>

"I don't think he's quite as bat-shit crazy as you think he is," he says after she complains.

"He didn't notice last week when Flash Thompson decided to have a toilet paper wad fight with the basketball team."

"And that bothered you?"

"I was trying to study for-"

"How did you get in if the door was locked?"

"It was propped open, I guess."

"And you let it close?"

"I didn't think it would lock!"

He rolls his eyes. "Well, shit, I guess."

* * *

><p>They sit with their backs up against the glass of the doors.<p>

"Don't you have some sort of super strength? You can't just blast through the doors?"

He looks at her pointedly. "There are security cameras. I don't want to get caught."

"Shit, there's got to be a way out."

"Without setting off the fire alarm? And we're on the third floor."

"Aren't you forgetting something."

"Fine, but that doesn't solve the fire alarm problem!"

"We could dismantle the fire alarm."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"You care about legality now?"

"What I do isn't illegal!"

"Sure, Pete."

But he follows her lead.


	3. Chapter 3

"So," she says, all businesslike, and professional.

(Which he hates, sometimes. It usually means she's going to rat him out. Or invite him over for dinner with the Stacy's.)

"Uh, so what?" he says, turning around, so he can walk facing her.

"Peter, you're so going to crash into some freshman."

"You're forgetting that I have a super-"

"Smart, announcing your p-o-w-e-r-s in front of the whole school."

"I'm pretty sure these people can spell."

She glances at down the hall Flash Thompson who is currently jumping to try to rip the school spirit decorations off the walls.

"Sure, Peter."

* * *

><p>"So," she says again when they've gotten to Chemistry after a thorough off topic rant. (Her complaining about the shitty public education system, him suggesting that maybe it's just the kids because they turned out pretty great, after which she glared, and he amended that she turned out pretty great and he turned out decent.)<p>

He does that little groan thing in the back of his throat that means he doesn't really want to hear what she has to say, and probably purposely changed the subject, but is all too polite to speak up about it.

"So... What?" he asks.

* * *

><p>He is literally saved by the bell.<p>

It rings just after he backs down to let her talk. "Tell me after class," he whispers.

He's fucking lucky she sits two rows over.

She's probably on to him.

Which doesn't bode well.

If she wants to prove a point, she won't forget.

She once gave him a basket of bread sticks for their four month anniversary because he'd described them as "pretty rad" (which they were), but on a completely different occasion he'd called her "pretty rad," and all the sudden she's "only as good as bread sticks."

Yeah, he's screwed.

* * *

><p>The teacher's a gnarly old guy who can't say four words without hacking. She's sure he chain smokes because every time he walks past, she catches a whiff of cigarettes.<p>

He's also boring as hell. At some point she doesn't care about the finer points of organic chemistry.

She actually enjoys chemistry.

Or would if this dope wasn't teaching it.

Why she has to sit in the front row, and Peter gets to slack off in the back (while he simultaneously doesn't learn anything, but gets A's regardless) is completely unfair.

At least she has time to plot against him.

* * *

><p>He tries to sneak out after class.<p>

Which doesn't work because she sits closer to the door and makes it outside before he does.

He reverts to his previous tactic. "So I heard-"

"No," she interrupts. "No, I'm telling you what I have to say. None of this passive-aggressive evasive shit!"

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I said okay."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Peter stop fucking with me!" Except that's kind of loud. And right in front of the principal. Her eyes go wide. "Sorry, sir!"

"Come on," Peter mutters, grabbing her elbow and ushering her outside.

"So, that thing I have to tell you..."


	4. Chapter 4

She throws her empty smoothie cup at the television.(She'd rather throw it at him, but seeing as he's the one gracing the screen, this is really her only option.)

She calls his cell.

"Hm?" comes his voice after two and a half rings, muffled, presumably, by his mask.

"What the hell are you thinking!"

"Woah, wait, Gwen? That's you, right?"

"Don't you have caller ID?"

"Yeah, but I'm in a hurry-"

"So you are in the middle of a gang war! And here I hoped that bimbo reporter just photoshopped your face in there."

"Gotta go!"

He hangs up.

* * *

><p>He feels bad for hanging up.<p>

But there honestly is a guy shooting at him.

He might cry if he loses another iPhone to bullet wounds.

He doesn't even bother throwing another sarcastic comment at this moron. (He'd tried awhile ago, and the guy had just stared at him blankly.) Instead he zaps the gun out of the guy's hand with a bit of webbing. Sends it scattering, clattering down the alley and into the harbor.

He makes a call to the police after he gets the guy tied up.

Then he heads for the real war zone.

Her apartment.

* * *

><p>She punches the off button of the remote with a little more force than is probably necessary for merely turning off the television.<p>

But really, she's too pissed off to care.

He hung up on her. He fucking hung up on her.

She waits for him on the balcony.

He shows up half an hour later

"Fucking hell, Peter!" Do you have absolutely no regard for your personal safety?" She's practically screaming, so it's good they're on her balcony where her mother has significantly less of a chance of hearing them.

"I'm getting out of the suit before we talk."

* * *

><p>"I'm alive and in one piece!" he protests, struggling out of suit from inside her bathroom.<p>

"You got in the middle of a gang war!"

"Hey, middle is relative. Technically-"

"Shut the hell up!"

"No! Gwen, do you think I'm completely naive out there? Do you think I can't-"

"I think you're an arrogant moron! You can't honestly think that suit makes you invincible! What will I do if you don't come back!"

He's quiet. And then. "I'll always come back."

"You can't promise that," she hisses.

He looks away. "I guess not."

A stagnant pause.

"Bye," he says, turning away.

"Wait."

* * *

><p>He doesn't turn his head back to her. Just stares out the window. Like he's planning an escape.<p>

"Gwen," he says, his voice strained. "If you... if we can't do this, then, I guess this is it."

"Peter."

"What?"

"Peter..."

"I'm changed, don't you understand that? This bite's made me.. it's made me... responsible. I can fix awful things. How could I possibly say no to that? It's not about pride or ego! Fuck, it's about giving power to those without it."

"Peter, fucking let me talk!"

"I can't expect you to understand this-"

"That doesn't mean I don't."


	5. Chapter 5

He's still a little jealous that she works at Oscorp. He wants to play with hella-awesome lasers and genetically modified starfish as much as any nerd. Definitely more than her.

Sometimes, on the weekends, when he gets bored of trying to take action shots of himself for The Daily Bugle, (There's only so many times you can attempt to backflip over the side of the building and miss the shot before you get bored.) he'll stop at the Greek restaurant she loves and pick up a couple gyros.

It gives him an excuse into the lab.

* * *

><p>There's smoke wafting from the little petri dish. It wasn't really supposed to happen that way. She'd put the microbes under the heat lamp for slightly longer than she should have.<p>

Like she forgot about them and left them there for two and a half hours.

She desperately tries to scrub out the container in the sink before Dr. Armsted finds out. Spritzes some emergency Febreze to dissipate the smell.

She nearly leaps out of her socks when a voice behind her asks, "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" she manages to squeak out.

"You sure?"

His arms snake around her hips.

* * *

><p>He only feels a little guilty when she yelps. "Hey, hey," he murmurs into her neck, "It's just me."<p>

"Fuck, Peter! I hate it when you do that!" Except, he's pretty sure she's lying because her voice is pitched super high, and she's already melting against him.

"You seem pretty tense."

"Maybe because you just snuck up and scared the shit out of me."

"Did you burn something?"

"Yes," she says bitterly.

"I think whatever you sprayed made it worse."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Hell yes. Can you not smell it?"

"Well, no."

"Can we leave? I'm gonna barf."

* * *

><p>Apparently when he said "Can we leave?" he really meant "Can we hit up the particle accelerator lab so I can play with it?"<p>

"Peter, I can't just let you in there! You aren't certified to-"

"Aw, Gwen-"

"No!"

He presses his lips together. Looks at his feet.

And then shoves her against the wall, his breath hot in her face, his lips cool against hers.

His hands braid through her hair, pulling the strands from her carefully crafted bun. She doesn't really care though. Her hands find his hips, pulling him closer.

Abruptly, he pulls back. "How about now?"

* * *

><p>"Shut up, Peter," she hisses in his ear. Her lips brush against the shell as she pulls away.<p>

He likes it enough to pull her back. Nuzzles his nose next to hers.

"Stop it," she murmurs. "Do you want to sneak into the lab or not? I can't get caught here! If you want to make out, we can do that at home."

"It's not as fun at home. It's not-" he bites her lip softly, "dangerous."

She trembles adorably in his hold.

Then, brazenly, she leans up, lips and teeth finding his.

"We are so sneaking in next time though," he says.

_Fin._


End file.
